Disaster: An Entry For An Italian Dictionary Of Sociology

Description: The social scientific study of disasters has increased tremendously in the last 30 years. While the initial research interest was concentrated in the United States, work on the human and group aspects of disasters is now a world-wide enterprise with major research being undertaken in such countries as Australia, Italy, Japan and Sweden. Thus, we can only look at selective, significant features of the topic in this article. We will primarily discuss the concept of disaster, present a brief sociohistorical description of the development of the research work, summarize the major substantive themes, findings and conclusions regarding a variety of disaster issues and questions, and conclude with a note about the future. While our emphasis will be on the work of sociologists, it should be noted that geographers in particular have also contributed substantially to the development of the area.